"A [preacher] who does not love art, poetry, music and nature can be dangerous. Blindness and deafness toward the beautiful are not incidental; they are necessarily reflected in his [preaching]." — BXVI

02 July 2017

Worthy OR Unworthy. . .not both

13th Sunday OT

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

OLR, NOLA

It's
standard Catholic fare these days on the internet and on TV for some
Catholic personality or media-priest to declare that the Church must be
more like Christ and drop her moral objections to [fill in the
blank]. Without fail, that blank is filled with whatever trendy
goofiness the elite secular culture is peddling this week, and it is
always has something to do with sex. I wish I could tell you that
this sort of thing is new in the Church, but it isn't. Since the day
after the Holy Spirit gave birth to the Church more than 2,000 years
ago, there have been those in the Church who cannot or will not
tolerate the discipline our faith requires of us. These days they are
especially keen on distorting perfectly good Christian practices like
mercy, love, forgiveness, etc. to undermine the Way, the Truth, and
the Life that Christ died to give us. Perhaps the most pernicious
distortion making the rounds right now is the idea that since none of
us is perfectly morally good, we should just dump Christ's teachings
on being worthy of him and ignore our responsibility to call one
another to holiness. The Church has no business admonishing sinners
we're told. Just allow Catholics their moral ignorance; it's the
“pastoral thing to do.”

Jesus
begs to differ. He says to his apostles no fewer than three times
that it is possible for us to be unworthy of him. We are unworthy if
(1) we love our parents more than we love him; (2) if we love our
children more than we love him; and (3) if we fail to take up our
cross and follow him. Why do these three specific failures make us
unworthy of Christ? Jesus says, “Whoever finds his life will lose
it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” In other
words, if I find “my life” in my family and friends and in my
self-centered interests, I will lose that
life. BUT if I lose “my life” for the sake of Christ, in his name
and for his mission, I will find it again. . .but radically altered.
My family, friends, and interests don't simply vanish when I turn my
life over to Christ; they return to me newly oriented, re-shaped at
the root and pointed faithfully toward Christ. Now, I am able to love
them all more perfectly through Christ, and see them all in his
light. Our take-away here should be obvious: it is possible to be
worthy of Christ and
it is possible to be unworthy of him. But not both at the same time.

If
I want to be unworthy of Christ, then all I have to do is love
something or someone else more than I love him. If I love my car, my
politics, my career, my sexuality, my bank account, my best friend,
or anyone or anything else more than I love Christ, then I am
unworthy of him. However, if I want to be made worthy of Christ, I
give away my car, my politics, my career, my sexuality, my bank
account, my best friend, and anyone or anything else that might
diminish my love of Christ. When all these people and things return
to me through Christ they will be radically re-oriented,
fundamentally transformed in his likeness and given a new mission, a
mission that is consistent with the ministry of the Body of Christ,
the Church. I can choose to be worthy or
unworthy. What I cannot do is choose to be worthy, claim to be
worthy, demand that the Church recognize me as worthy and surrender
nothing of what I love more than Christ. I may find a priest or
bishop or Catholic media personality willing to pump me up and tell
my sad story, but without the Cross, without my sacrifice, my
surrender, I am telling and living a lie. Jesus can't say it anymore
plainly than he does: “. . .whoever does not take up his cross and
follow after me is not worthy of me.”

Pope
Francis has suggested that we see the Church as a “field hospital”
where wounded patients come for emergency treatment. This is a
brilliant image! Those sick with sin and wounded by the world can
find immediate spiritual treatment in the sacramental care of the
Church. Staying with that image. . .what would we say of someone who
comes to the hospital and demands to be admitted as a patient;
demands that the doctors not call their wounds wounds;
refuses treatment of any kind; and then demands the doctors cease
treating all the other patients with similar wounds? Furthermore,
what would we say about a doctor who facilitates the admission of
this person and bows to their demands? A doctor who looks at an
obviously broken arm, says its not broken, does nothing to fix the
arm, and then demands that the other doctors stop fixing all of the
other obviously broken arms b/c they aren't really broken? I think
you would say with me that we've entered some sort of Catholic
Twilight Zone! If the Church is a “field hospital,” she is also a
“medicinal community” where sickness and wounds are constantly
treated as such. If no one is sick or wounded, then there is no
necessary treatment. If there is no treatment to be given, then why
are we here?

We
are here b/c we know that to be worthy of Christ, to be made worthy
of Christ we must first surrender everything and everyone we love,
submerging ourselves fully in the Love Who loves us first. That means
drowning our actual sins, our disordered passions, our vices and
allowing them to fall away in favor of being New Creations. We cannot
be who God made us to be if we cling to the old self, demanding that
the Truth change to fit our personal preferences. Christ changes us;
we do not and cannot change Christ. If you will to be worthy of him,
then “you too must think of yourselves as dead to sin and living
for God in Christ Jesus.”